2004 VarleyYarn Index

© 2004 by John Varley; all rights reserved

  
 

January 19, 2004 - Shame on him who thinks this evil

On December 5th I told you all that, since we live 15 miles north of Santa Maria, we planned to cover the Michael Jackson hullabaloo from gavel to gavel, to give you an insider’s perspective that you can’t get on CNN or Entertainment Tonight. To defray costs we reluctantly decided to offer this wonderful opportunity on a subscription basis, three easy payments of $19.95.

 
 

April 21, 2004 - There is no gravity! The Earth sucks!

7 AM, 4/19/04. We stumble out of bed. I eat a banana, Lee turns on the coffee machine, we check our email and turn on CNN. More dead people in Iraq. We shower. Then, instead of making breakfast, we pile into the car and pick up our usual road breakfast at Mickey Dee’s and head down California Route 1 to Vandenberg AFB.

  
 

May 1, 2004 - 21 Missions

During late ’02 and most of ’03 we set ourselves the project of visiting all of the 21 Alta California missions. We were centrally located just about halfway between San Diego, the first and southernmost, and Sonoma, the last and northernmost of them. We’re not religious, but I’ve always enjoyed churches architecturally and as places of contemplation. And we’re history buffs, we like to visit anything that’s old ... and in California the missions are about as old as it gets, except for Indian artifacts.

  
 

June 10, 2004 - The Canonization of Saint Ronnie

We are now into Day 5 of the canonization of Saint Ronnie, and CNN has transformed itself into the All-Reagan channel.

  
 

July 4, 2004 - By Any Means Necessary

For about ten years now the right has lied, bullied, intimidated, and frightened the left to the point that "liberal" is a word the Democratic Party is afraid to say. These people who have the nerve to whine about Fahrenheit 9/11 being "unfair" are the same ones who impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob …

  
 

July 12-21, 2004 - Launch Diary: The AURA Satellite and the Peacekeeper

MONDAY NIGHT. Actually, Tuesday morning, 1:30 AM. We get up and wander around. I’m awake, not having actually slept. Lee brews her coffee. What with one thing and another, we get out the door at about 2:10. There is a low cloud layer. Very low: the searchlight from the nearby private airport sweeps by every 30 seconds, a solid beam of light. Very soon we are driving up to the mesa, through patchy fog. Before long the fog is more than patchy.

  
 

August 2, 2004 - CAN’T WE ALL AGREE TO JUST HATE ONE ANOTHER?

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics,

And the Catholics hate the Protestants,

And the Hindus hate the Moslems,

And everybody hates the Jews!

- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week"

  
 

October 1, 2004 - The Nazz

This is my review of The Passion of the Christ. Since my Aramaic is a bit rusty and I don’t speak Hebrew, the following review will be in Latin.

  
 

October 4, 2004 - Being There

What if you could be in Kitty Hawk in 1903? Would you go? How about Paris in 1927 to be there when Lindbergh landed? Or Baikonur in 1961, or the Cape in 1969?

  
 

October 23, 2004 - It was CGI night at the Sunset!

There are some truly amazing advantages to this technology. Tom Hanks was able to play three characters, sometimes with himself. He plays a child (someone else did the voice), and in fact all the child stars are played by adults. But from a technical standpoint there was something else even more amazing.

  
 

November 1, 2004 - Seven Weddings and a Funeral

The old Indian stood on a gravel lane between two parking lots, looking at the liquor store. It was dusk in Holbrook, Arizona. It was getting hard to see. He seemed to have shrunk in his clothes, and he hardly moved. He was wearing a battered old hat. You couldn’t really tell how old he was, but he wasn’t young.

 
 

November 3, 2004 - W!

I have to admit, I was feeling pretty down today. We stayed up late last night, until it became obvious from the geologists that Ohio was going to slide down into Texas like a great glacial moraine. We drooped around all day, taking a call from one of my sisters, who said she was thinking of moving to Canada, and that my other sister had come over, crying.

  
 

November 14, 2004 - Haunted Stealth Alpacas

Lee’s been working hard on the website, going back over the old postings and updating the links, adding stuff from our boxes and boxes of albums and loose photos. But here and there she decides she needs a new picture, so we took off for Lompoc to fill in some of the gaps.

  
 

November 25, 2004 - Thanksgiving

We were going to celebrate Thanksgiving with Mom and Kerry, but that fell through when we found out there wasn’t a motel room available within about 30 miles. We’d waited too long, forgetting this is a tourist destination even this late in the year.

  
 

December 25, 2004 - 2004 Xmas Card: A Visit from POTUS

  

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